Latest Wave of Campaign Reform Homes in on Media

Amid mounting disgust with what many consider the distorted and trivial nature of recent political campaigns, a new wave of reform is building to clean up politics.

But while previous reform efforts were aimed largely at campaign financing, the new ones focus on the media, both on how the candidates use television and on how the press covers--or fails to cover--the political process.

Implicit in these ideas is recognition of the increasing importance of the media in politics, and of the 30-second TV spot as a focal point of American political discourse.

But there is no firm consensus that this current spate of ideas actually will make campaigns more relevant. Some consider the proposals illegal, impractical or just plain inadequate.

Others question the basic premise behind the reforms, contending that the deplorable state of campaigning today is not the cause of bad government, but only the symptom.

These analysts believe the country is in a period of political drift, with governing institutions and leaders in both parties gridlocked. Under these circumstances, they argue, the proposed reforms would help clean up politics only at the margins.

“I think before campaigns can change, the political environment has to change,” pollster Andrew Kohut said in an interview at a conference on media and politics at UC Davis--one of several such recent meetings. “There has to be a clear picture of differences between the parties and the candidates on the issues.”

One of the new wave of proposals calls for requiring political candidates to make their television commercials longer in an effort to break the grip of the 30-second spot. Another would require candidates to appear in their own commercials--at least at the end, where the sponsor of the ad is supposed to be identified. Still another suggests that the news media become more aggressive in policing campaigns--even to the point where they deliberately shape candidates’ agendas.

Whatever the solutions, dissatisfaction with the present system is widespread--and intense. “Political campaigns turn the stomach of the average voter,” complained Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), in a sentiment echoed by other political leaders in both parties.

Examples abound:

--In the Texas Democratic gubernatorial primary last March, State Treasurer Ann Richards was accused of using illegal drugs. She countered by charging her chief rival, Mark White, a former governor, with using taxpayers’ money to “line his pockets.” She won the nomination hands down.

--Last autumn’s New Jersey gubernatorial contest became known as the “Pinocchio campaign” after Republican and Democratic candidates spent 85% of their advertising budgets calling each other liars.

--In a Wyoming special election for Congress this past spring, the normally conventional Casper Star-Tribune got so fed up with “the acid of negativism” that was being spread by the major Republican and Democratic candidates that it endorsed a Libertarian.

To be sure, nasty and distorted campaigning is nothing new to American politics. As far back as 1800, presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson was attacked as a threat to private property, female chastity and the sanctity of religious worship.

But concern over such tactics has increased recently, in part because of growing worry about declining voter turnout, which critics blame partly on voter turnoff as a result of negative ads. The proportion of Americans who vote in presidential elections plunged to 50% in recent years, from 63% in 1960, while the turnout in congressional races now is only 37%, compared to 48% three decades ago. “Television in general and demagogic advertising in particular” are “substantial” factors in that decline, suggests Curtis Gans, head of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.

Reformers argue that the cleanup also is important because changes such as declining U.S. economic clout and the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe make it more important than ever that the American electoral process produce effective leaders. “Eastern Europeans would be well-advised not to import . . . the increasingly shallow nature of electoral campaigns,” said Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, whose failed 1988 presidential campaign seemed incapable of responding to criticisms from George Bush.

Of course, politicians contend that criticizing an opponent over issues is a legitimate way of campaigning. But critics worry that today’s negativism goes far beyond that. “Instead of being issue-driven, they focus on what is wrong with the character of a candidate,” Thomas C. Griscom, a former White House communications director, said.

The difference is significant. Analysts say the attacks on a candidate’s character are more emotional and more prone to distortion, treating issues mainly as symbols rather than as the substance of the campaign message.

And most agree that a major reason for this shift is the increasing dominance of television in political communication--particularly through campaign advertising. With its propensity for drama, emotion and personalization of issues, TV has accentuated the focus on character.

But negative campaigning is on the rise for one simple reason: It works.

One factor is what communications experts call the “information overload”--the plethora of interests competing for public attention, support and money in the United States today. “There is a sensory bombardment, and the mind has the tendency to get numb,” said Mary Matalin, chief of staff of the Republican National Committee. As a result, politicians “have to scream louder. And the screaming tends to get personal or negative.”

At the same time, political consultants say the rapid increase in TV advertising rates--which have doubled during the past six years--intensifies the pressure on them to invest campaign funds where they will have the most impact. That means greater use of attack ads, whose simple message hits home more quickly--and less expensively--than so-called “positive” advertising.

Part of the blame, too, may rest with the way the news media cover campaigns, critics say, particularly in the case of presidential elections. Network news stories average about one minute and 30 seconds--too short to allow even well-meaning candidates to provide much depth.

To make things worse, the time being alloted to the candidates’ own words in political commercials is shrinking steadily. A study by Daniel Hallin, a University of San Diego professor, found that the average “sound bite”--or quotation from a candidate--has been cut over the past six presidential elections, from 43.1 seconds in 1968 to 8.9 seconds in 1988.

Nor is television the sole culprit. A study to be released this week by the Markle Foundation on how major newspapers and magazines covered the 1988 presidential election found that only 10% of stories actually dealt with issues. Almost 40% focused on who was winning, another 20% highlighted conflicts or attacks between candidates, and another 20% highlighted qualifications or character.

When the campaign for Texas governor turned nasty this spring, “the press down here in Texas just fed on it,” State Democratic Chairman Robert Slagle said.

The new ideas for upgrading the campaign process center on four major factors--forcing candidates to appear in person in their ads, making the commercials longer, offering candidates free or cheaper air time and prodding the press into becoming a more forceful referee.

One modest proposal backed in the Senate by Danforth would alter the regulations on disclosure of campaign financing to require that candidates show their faces in part of their commercials, thus making it plain who is responsible for the ads. Current rules require only that the commercial contain a statement showing who paid for it. Often these disclosure lines are so small, they are all but unreadable.

A more far-reaching approach would impose stringent restrictions on the content of ads in exchange for free time for candidates, either donated by the TV stations or paid for with federal funds. The government currently can order TV stations to give up some air time as part of the requirement for obtaining a broadcast license.

Robert Squier, a Democratic media consultant who produced Ann Richards’ personal attack ads in the Texas campaign, suggests that any new rules forbid candidates from even mentioning their opponents in their ads. He also wants to see candidates agree not to air 30-second spots--the shortest, and the most-suited-to-attack advertising--in the final two weeks of a campaign.

With the idea of providing free or federally financed TV time (possibly through the use of income-tax checkoffs) gaining momentum on Capitol Hill, some reformers also are calling for regulations that would require any candidates who accept such free time to appear on camera--talking--in their commercials.

The hope is that having to appear on camera would give candidates pause about attacking their opponents too harshly, and ultimately would prod them into using the time to focus on issues. “We should do everything we can that will get candidates to articulate their views, or for them to be embarrassed if they can’t,” said Democratic National Chairman Ron Brown.

But there is no guarantee that the new proposals to control the content of campaign ads would work--or even would be legal. Skeptics point out that the courts still might declare that such restrictions violate constitutional guarantees of free speech.

And some worry that such efforts could backfire. “If you have a system that mandates candidates to look into the camera and give the answer,” said former Republican political consultant Douglas Bailey, “you are mandating that candidates must be good at this medium or they will lose the election.”

TV executives and political professionals also suspect that the media companies that own TV stations will lobby hard against any proposal that might force them to lose lucrative advertising time. And some analysts doubt whether taxpayers would want to foot the bill for political advertising.

Critics also see problems with the third group of proposals--those that would offer new incentives such as free TV time to encourage the production of ads longer than 30 seconds. If Congress adopted one plan, designed to make free ads five minutes long, the result (in some crowded primaries) might require 20 to 40 minutes of free air time each night. And some analysts question whether the free time alone would be sufficient to drown out the heavier volume of paid ads, many of them negative.

And not all consultants agree that 30-second spots discourage meaningful discourse. “I think 30 seconds is fine . . . depending on what your message is,” said Roger Ailes, President Bush’s media adviser, whose negative ads in the 1988 presidential campaign have helped fuel some of the debate.

Perhaps the simplest idea for reform is one championed by Washington Post political columnist David Broder: That the press should do a more vigorous job of covering politics. In a sense, Broder argues that reporters should no longer use the pretense of “objectivity” to remain passive recorders of a campaign; instead, they should immediately debunk a candidate’s statements on their own--without waiting for the candidate’s opponent to do it for them. (The idea of reporters pointing out candidates’ inaccuracies is not without precedent. It has been most recently apparent in the campaign for the California Democratic gubernatorial nomination, where some reporters have cited misleading statements in TV commercials.)

“The press should be just as willing to set the agenda on issues as it is on candidates’ private lives,” agreed Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School of Communications, recalling the coverage of former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart’s extramarital affairs, which drove him out of the race for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination.

But politicians worry that excessive zeal by some reporters could lead to a form of journalistic vigilantism. “With all due respect, (increased press monitoring) is sort of analogous to judges without juries,” the GOP’s Matalin said. “Who are journalists to set the moral standards for politics?”

But to many analysts, the real weakness with the reform proposals is that they fail to address the root of what is wrong with American politics--a deepening malaise that has its roots in the failure of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal of the Richard M. Nixon Administration.

San Diego’s Hallin argues that these events brought on a “weakening of political consensus and authority” and produced a new political era in which neither Democrats nor Republicans have been able to establish an effective majority. “The real problem is that the whole process is stalemated,” said Cornell University political scientist Ben Ginsberg.

Hallin agrees. “There is confusion about what the country stands for and what the political process ought to be,” he said. “Television is shaped by the politics of the country, and so we have the kind of television news we have because of the politics we have.”